Fun Friday Links: Communication Flowcharts, Why You Probably Aren’t Good at Multi-Tasking and the Science of Productivity

Welcome to Conspire’s Super Happy Fun Friday Link Time, a weekly collection of cool discoveries from around the Web. Most times the goal is to get you thinking differently about communication, collaboration, culture, and life in general. Other times, LOLCAT ATTACK!

Submissions are welcome, and you can send them to conspire@mindjet.com for consideration.

Wendy Macnaughton is like a wizard of visual philosophy. This flowchart of which mode of communication to use is just one example of her talent (I especially love how she incorporates possibilities like procrastination and whether or not you’re trying to get a raise):

“People don’t multitask because they’re good at it,” says David Sanbonmatsu, a professor of psychology at the University of Utah and lead author of the study. “They do it because they are more distracted. They have trouble inhibiting the impulse to do another activity.

[…]

“People sometimes think multitasking means greater productivity. That’s not what the findings in the literature say at all. A lot of times people multitask because they can’t focus on the task that’s most important to them.”